When artists associated with secular music decide to record a gospel album, it usually means one of two things: Either they are in deep trouble with the IRS, or they have seen the evil of their showbiz ways and want to repent. So when Memphis’s audacious soul-sludge kings, the Oblivians,…
If a visitor wanted to find out about the latest in Colorado hip-hop, he’d have a difficult time learning anything from the most readily accessible sources. Reporters at network-TV affiliates probably wouldn’t do a story on a local rapper unless he had been arrested for a felony. The commercial radio…
Jerry Only, bassist and co-founder of the Misfits, knows all too well that being an influence doesn’t pay the bills. Founded in 1977, Only’s band, which was led by singer Glenn Danzig, inspired a generation of punk and metal musicians during its six years of existence. But the ghoulish group’s…
A few years ago, when rage was all the rage, Mary Timony, singer and guitarist for the Boston-based band Helium, spread breathy layers of female angst over slabs of guitar sludge. But things have changed. While other artists formerly known as angry young women are either donning Versace or becoming…
At one point or another during the first half of the Nineties, virtually every minor band that had a lightweight MTV hit ten years earlier reunited–and for the most part, I didn’t care. Book of Love, Suicidal Tendencies: Sure, I liked them, but it was just as satisfying to sit…
Regular perusers of Westword’s Letters column may have noticed that I occasionally come in for criticism from a percentage of this publication’s readers, each of whom I love and admire in a sincere and personal way. But I’ve never received abuse as eccentric as the kind dished out by Cindy…
Seven years ago this month, Westword published my list of the 100 worst hit songs of the rock era (“The Scum Also Rises,” October 24, 1990). But this countdown to mediocrity, which began with Andy Gibb’s “(Love Is) Thicker Than Water” and ended with the unfathomably abysmal Paul Anka anthem…
“We’re not a band for vegetarians, you know,” says Kyle Loving, guitarist and frontman for Denver’s Ray-Ons. “But if you like meat and potatoes, I think you can dig it.” True enough, there are no frills on the Ray-Ons’ menu–just the rocking riffs offered up by Loving, the elastic bass…
Rumors. Without them, there might be a lot of empty space in this column every week. But, as even I have to acknowledge, they’re not always true. Take the chatter surrounding City Spirit, a restaurant and nightspot at 1434 Blake Street that came to life in lower downtown twelve years…
Folks trying to fathom commercial country music in 1997 need to look no further than this summer’s presentation in New York City’s Central Park by singer-songwriter Garth Brooks. The concert, televised live on HBO, drew a leviathan crowd of corn-fed white people; the park probably hasn’t contained so many Caucasians…
Over the fifty years he’s been performing in public, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, 73, has earned seven Grammy nominations and numerous W.C. Handy awards, played alongside pupils such as Eric Clapton, Leon Russell and Ry Cooder, and developed a multi-genre sound that he refers to as “American music, Texas style.” But…
“All harpists do not have long blond hair, and they aren’t tall and willowy and quiet,” declares Boston-based harp virtuoso Deborah Henson-Conant. “Not by a long shot.” Henson-Conant is living proof of this claim. Not only is she a musical innovator, taking the harp where it’s never gone before, but…
Every musician has a story about gigs from hell, but few of these tales can compare with the one told by Michael Rains, bassist and vocalist for Denver’s 1000 RPM. The band was booked to play a back-to-classes bash at the Colorado School of Mines, where 1000 RPM guitarist/ vocalist…
That Denver DJ Larry (L.L.) Bishop remains deeply involved in dance music is a tribute to his resilience. After all, his wife and constant companion, Wreath Rose Bishop, died in an automobile accident in Boulder a mere five months ago, and thoughts of her continue to fill his head; his…
Our hard-hitting media colleagues have spent the past several days eulogizing John Denver, who died in a plane crash last weekend at the age of 53, not as a drunk driver and a gasoline hoarder, but as an environmental activist and a boon to Colorado tourism, and that’s fine; I…
Steve Earle El Corazon (Warner Bros.) When the country-music establishment turned its back on Earle, a reformed junkie and unrehabilitated loudmouth, he turned his back on the country-music establishment. For that reason and many others, you’ll in all likelihood never hear selections from this recording on C&W radio–and that’s a…
According to Devon Rodgers, drummer for Register, “I think you’d become more famous starting your own sporting team than you would by becoming a musician in Denver.” Fortunately, fame isn’t the primary motivation for Rodgers and his married bandmates, guitarist/vocalist Dan Owens and Josie Fluri. Rather than mimic currently popular…
The musical explosion that took place in the Pacific Northwest during the late Eighties and early Nineties wasn’t exactly a secret; if memory serves, a few million gallons of ink were spilled in telling the tale of the so-called grunge movement. But whereas Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and the rest received…
A lot of observers out there still don’t believe that the Denver-Boulder area has a dance scene, and Hardy Kalisher of Boulder’s Sol Productions knows why. “I see us as having three separate music communities,” he says. “One is the promoters, who spend most of their time thinking about how…
Journalists like yours truly are fond of claiming that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but that’s not always the case–and Prince Roger Nelson can prove it. He almost single-handedly made pop music in the Eighties tolerable, but as the decade wore on and his eccentricities mounted, critics and…
Many of the pop sounds that crowd the airwaves are not so much the spawn of earlier eras as they are slightly embellished clones of their forebears. Make no mistake–the many genres that are competing in this fin de siecle revue are valid, with rich histories. But all too often,…
Although numerous reggae lovers feel that 55-year-old Justin Hinds is one of the best vocalists in the music’s history, only a handful of Americans are familiar with him–and many of them know him better as a hotelier than as a singer. “I have a big house out in the country,…
